News

Flames News

Kolanos fitting right in

CALGARY, AB -- The month of February has been nothing short of incredible for Calgary Flames forward Krys Kolanos.

After a stellar first half of the season with the Abbotsford Heat, the Flames AHL affiliate, the team signed him to a two-year, two-way contract on Feb. 1. and was recalled the same day he signed the deal.

Since coming up from Abbotsford, the Calgary product has played nine games in Flames silks and has grown more confident with each passing game.

"I feel every game that I get a little better and things are coming around for me," he told CalgaryFlames.com. "That's important with the role I'm playing right now.

Kolanos looked slightly tentative in his first couple of games. He played conservatively while he got used to the team's system and his teammates tendencies but in his last couple of games, he has looked very sure of himself.

He notched his first point with the Flames on Tuesday night - an assist on a Scott Hannan marker - and has put nine shots on net in his last three outings. He came extremely close to scoring his first goal with Calgary on Saturday night when he managed to beat Los Angeles' Jonathan Quick but rang his shot off the iron.

While his offensive production is important to him and he is itching to help his team by putting some more points up, Kolanos is more concerned with playing an all-around solid game.

"The most important thing is having a balanced game," he said. "I feel like things are moving in the right direction and I'm just going to keep pushing."

The 30 year-old has been placed on a line with Roman Horak and Paul Byron recently and while the trio have become accustomed to each other's style of play, Kolanos sees them continuing to develop as a line.

"I think we're a work-in-progress," he smiled. "We need to just play a very hard, feisty, leave it all out there style of play. That's the coaches expectations of us. The most important thing is that we do that each and every shift."